Read Online Sleeping With the Enemy by Laurie Breton - Free Book Online Page A

“Well,” Rose said.  “That certainly went well.”
    Miserable, she did what she always did to ease her anguish: opened a pint of chocolate ice cream and called her sister Maeve.
    “Where have you been?” her sister exclaimed.  “I haven’t seen you since Rob’s wedding.  I thought you were dead or something.”
    Rose ate a huge spoonful of chunky chocolate ice cream.  “Not dead,” she said, “but definitely something.  Aw, Maeve, you won’t believe what’s been going on.”
    “This sounds serious.  Hold on while I get fortification.”
    She managed to wolf down two more heaping spoonfuls of ice cream before her sister returned.  “Okay,” Maeve said, “I’m back.  Spill the beans.”
    “For starters, I just caught your favorite niece in bed with her boyfriend.  I’m still reeling from the shock.”
    “Aw, geez, Rose.”
    “It gets better.  They were in my bedroom.  In my bed.”
    “Ew, gross.  What did you do?”
    “What do you think I did? I went ballistic.  Jesus Christ, Maeve, she’s only seventeen!”
    “And how old were you when you and Eddie started doing it?”
    “Me? I was—” She stopped in disbelief as the truth sank in.  “That was different!” she said.  “That was Eddie, Maeve.  We were practically married.”
    “How old?” her sister persisted.
    “Oh, all right, I was seventeen.  But things were different then.”
    “Is that so? In exactly what way?”
    “We didn’t have to worry about dying!”
    “Okay.  I’ll grant you that one point.  Rose, she’s a normal seventeen-year-old girl.  Don’t you remember what seventeen was like? We were a raging mass of hormones.”
    “Aw, geez.” Rose set down the ice cream and rubbed her temple.  “I guess I didn’t handle it very well, did I?”
    “You handled it like a normal mother.  What do you think Mom would have done if she’d ever caught you with Eddie?”
    In spite of her misery, Rose laughed at the vision her sister’s words conjured up of the stalwart Mary MacKenzie, armed to the teeth, hell-bent on vengeance.  “Before or after the castration?”
    “And so it goes,” Maeve said, “and so it goes.”
    Bleakly, she said, “God, Maeve, I’m turning into Mom, aren’t I?”
    “Oh, sure.  I can just see Mom running around with no bra, marching to save the whales.  You’re not turning into her, Rose.  You just need to get a life.  I know you don’t want to hear this, but what you need is a man.”
    Rose sighed.  “I guess it’s time to tell you the rest of it.  You remember that guy I met at the wedding?”
    “The studly blond babe with the bedroom eyes? How could I forget? I wanted to have his babies.”
    Rose cleared her throat.  “Well, Maeve, hold onto your hat.  I’m having his baby.”
    Her sister snorted.  “In your dreams.”
    “Maeve, I’m serious.  I’m pregnant.”
    A moment of silence reigned before the explosion.  “Holy guacamole, Batman! You really are serious! How the hell did this happen?”
    Dryly, Rose said, “It wasn’t exactly in vitro fertilization.”
    “Sorry.  Stupid question.” Maeve’s voice softened.  “Oh, Rose.  A baby.  I’m so damn jealous.  Have you told him?”
    I’ve told him.” Rose held her spoon at eye level and viewed its contents balefully.  “He wants to get married.”
    “I hope to God you had the sense to say yes.”
    “I told him it was out of the question.”
    “You would.  Geez, if a guy that gorgeous offered to marry me, I’d have him down at City Hall so fast his head would spin.  And then I’d keep him on a leash.  A real short one.”
    “Don’t get your knickers in a twist.  I reconsidered.  I told him I’d think about it.”
    “If I were you, I’d think real hard.”
    “I have.  And I’ve made a decision.” She hadn’t realized it until this moment.  She slid the spoon into her mouth and let the chocolate melt on her tongue as she looked around the kitchen of the house she’d lived